


NDRV3 (Be More Chill Edition)

by ssentenial



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Non-Despair (Dangan Ronpa), F/F, F/M, Heavy Angst, It's barely mentioned but it's there, Jealousy, M/M, Misgendering, Rating May Change, Tags May Change, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Trans Male Character, Trans Saihara Shuichi, have fun with that...?, it's a be more chill au, kaito is kind of an asshole, sorry kaito, uhhh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-14 04:55:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14762978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssentenial/pseuds/ssentenial
Summary: Shuichi glares at the computer screen in his dark room, eyes tired and burning. The video loads slowly, and in true Pornhub fashion, he can only see a blurry mesh of skin where the pornstars should be. “Come on,” he mutters under his breath. “It’s been 3 minutes, just go. Load.”(inspired by sugarplumpofweirdness's au on Tumblr)





	NDRV3 (Be More Chill Edition)

**Author's Note:**

> hi
> 
> if you're in the bmc fandom you might recognize me from my past stuff  
> and if you do i'm very sorry
> 
> my writing skills have been on a downward spiral :^/
> 
> anyways! please enjoy my writing! and check out sugarplumpofweirdness, they have very cute art and fun AU's.

Shuichi glares at the computer screen in his dark room, eyes tired and burning. The video loads slowly, and in true Pornhub fashion, he can only see a blurry mesh of skin where the pornstars should be.

“Come on,” he mutters under his breath. “It’s been 3 minutes, just go. Load.” An alarm on his phone goes off, and Shuichi turns it off, irritated. At this point, it was too late to jack off. He clicks out of the window, clears his history, and instinctively runs his thumb over the laptop camera cover before shutting it off. He half-heartedly shoves the laptop in his bag and sighs, annoyed by his waning arousal. Time to feel uncomfortable for the entire day.

Then again, when has he ever been comfortable?

—

After a shower, the dark-haired boy goes through his daily routine with mechanical accuracy. He slips his clothes on, combs his hair, puts on some eyeliner, and judges his appearance in the mirror for 5 minutes, as one does. The teenager grimaces at his reflection. Although it was combed down thoroughly, the same lock of hair sprung out of its place. He doesn’t bother to fix it, settling for a cap on his head. That should do.

Now that he thought about it, he actually looked kinda okay for once. Shuichi strikes various poses in front of the mirror, and while he does look decent, he definitely doesn’t look like Kaede’s type. Too… feminine. The young detective sighs, wondering why he expected a change.

The bathroom door then opens, and he screams, embarrassed. “Oji-san!” His uncle’s worried face peeks out from behind the door. 

“Hey Shuichi. Did you eat breakfast?”

“N-not yet. More importantly, haven’t you heard of privacy?”

“We’re all guys in this house, kiddo. Nothing to be ashamed of!”

“...Right.” Shuichi eyes his uncle, his lack of pants immediately coming to his attention. “Just… could you wear pants when I come home?”

His uncle grins. “I don’t make promises Mister Detective.” And with that, he leaves. Shuichi sighs in relief. He was going to miss the bus if he didn’t hurry.

—

It’s a cloudy California day outside. Shuichi spaces out as his eyes are turned to the window, focused on its raindrops. His head is filled with the information of a new case his uncle was working on; a petty robbery.

His teacher doesn’t approve of this. “Saihara.”

His head snaps towards his teacher. “Y-Yes?”

“Please put the hat away.”

Face burning, the young detective takes off his hat and puts it in his backpack. He feels eyes, eyes staring at him and boring into his skull as his cowlick starts to pop out of its place. Shuichi can hear Kaito Momota and Miu Iruma snickering behind him, so he instinctively flattens the stubborn lock of hair with his hand. Ever since the detective moved to the U.S., his life has only gotten worse. The Hope’s Peak Ultimate Program was expanded globally a year ago, and he had the opportunity to partake in the Exchange Program. Shuichi was elated, but due to his late application for the program, he started school late, and was considered an outcast among his exchange program peers. His awkward nature and anxiety didn’t help either, only serving to perpetuate distasteful rumors about him.

When the bell rings, Shuichi rushes out of the classroom, averting his gaze towards the distant wall. It’s so much easier to hide when he has his hat. As he moves towards his locker, he immediately spots a group of girls, gossiping their mouths off. He’s not one for gossip, but it doesn’t prevent him from overhearing their conversation.

“...And then, Junko told Rantaro, “I’ll only have sex with you if you beat me at pool,” and she lost. On purpose.” Shuichi recognizes the voice instantly. Tsumugi Shirogane; the Ultimate Cosplayer, the prettiest girl in his school, the girl who treats him like a stink bug. His grip on his books tighten as memories of her condescending laughter fill his mind.

“That is so awesome.”

“Miu!”

“I mean slutty!” 

“And then, Junko went—“

“ _I’m telling the story, Tenko._ ”

Shuichi jumps in surprise, not anticipating the cold tone in Tsumugi’s voice. He doesn’t realize he’s staring at the girls until they make eye contact. As soon as he looks away, he sees the blue-haired beauty scowling at him in his peripheral vision. She pulls her friends away from him and towards her. “Oh my god. He was definitely getting off on that...”

Face burning once more, Shuichi shuts his locker and puts his hat back on, lowering the brim over his face. He starts to walk into the river of students passing by when he bumps into the school’s resident asshole, Kaito Momota. Of course, Kaito takes great offense to this.

The Ultimate Astronaut brushes invisible dirt off the area of his coat which Shuichi bumped into. “Don’t touch me shortie!”

The young detective flinches. He always hated it when Kaito yelled, his voice was too loud and disruptive. “S-sorry, I was just trying to get through-”

In a sudden display of strength, Kaito grabs Shuichi by his backpack and writes something on it. “Hold still.” The latter, in slight terror, heeds the former’s commands. He doesn’t even feel it when he’s shoved against his own locker. “Wash that off and you’re dead.”

Shuichi rubs his arm tenderly and adjusts his hat as Kaito yells at someone from across the hall. “Rantaro! What’s the deal with you and Junko?”

The detective recognizes him instantly. From his locker, the Ultimate Adventurer shoots a sly smile at Kaito. His smile somehow accentuates his handsome features, and Shuichi faintly remembers having a small crush on the green haired boy. Then proceeds to bury that memory, embarrassed by his own thoughts. 

“Oh… I shouldn’t say,” Rantaro says, with that stupid smug expression. “But it’s a good thing I rock at pool.”

The dark-haired student waits for them to walk away before rejoining his peers in the journey to his next class. He shrinks into his own hoodie and focuses his gaze on a far away poster, in an attempt to remain unseen. As he nears it, Shuichi realizes that the poster was actually a signup sheet. Out of curiosity, his eyes flick up to its title. “Sign Up Sheet: After-School Musical”.

Yeah, no. Shuichi has more important things to do, like tracking down criminals. Moving on. He proceeds to the water fountain, and takes his water bottle out to refill it before being interrupted by a familiar voice.

“I’m sorry, could I use that before you? I’m gonna be late…” 

The detective turns around to see Kaede Akamatsu, in her golden splendor. She smiles softly, her kind eyes gazing right into his own. Speaking of which, her eyes were a muted purple (what an odd color, it’s beautiful). Shuichi’s heart rate increases exponentially, and he can feel his insides jumping in joy at the sight of his long-term crush. There is no way he can resist her.

“Oh, o-of course.”

As she passes in front of him with a cheery, “Thanks!”, he catches her rosy scent. She fills her lavender water bottle (lavender, she wears it all the time, perhaps her favorite color?), and Shuichi immediately starts to worry. Does he smell? Is his hat off-putting? Why is she being so nice; did she mistake him for a girl or something? The Ultimate Pianist suddenly looks back at him as she closes her water bottle. Her gaze feels like it’s scanning him, and Shuichi shifts awkwardly, as they make eye-contact. Then her expression turns confused.

“Um, I think someone wrote “BOYF” on your backpack.”

Shuichi immediately shrugs off his backpack and looks at the front. In big letters, the word (is that even a word?) “BOYF” is written in permanent marker. He feels his face heat up in embarrassment. One of these days, he’ll get the courage to punch Kaito. But for now, Shuichi can only make a vaguely embarrassed noise as he bolts away from his crush, his face burning a bright red.

—

With a groan, Shuichi slumps down on a lunch table. He takes out a granola bar, chewing slowly as he checks his reflection on his phone screen. His dark circles were becoming more prominent. If he could use more makeup without being called a girl, he would cover his bags with concealer. After all, Kaede wouldn’t like tired people. She’s always so energetic and a tired person wouldn’t be able to keep up with her.

Rather than thinking about his crush, Shuichi decides to turn his attention to the cafeteria entryway, searching for a familiar face. As soon as it comes through the door, he raises a hand and calls out, “Kiibo! Over here!”

Kiibo hears him, and the Ultimate Robot’s face brightens as he runs to the table. “Shuichi! Good morning!” His best friend puts a red slushy and a pack of cheap sushi on the table, proudly pushing both items towards the detective. “These are for you. You don’t eat much, so I decided to get some food for you.”

Shuichi smiles, bashful. “Ah, Kiibo… you didn’t need to do that for me.”

“But food is essential!” Kiibo proclaims, sitting down beside him. “You must get your daily nutrients, should you want to continue maintaining a stable school life and detective career! Also,” the robot starts to turn a bit pink, “I like watching you eat sushi.”

The dark-haired boy laughs. “Do you live vicariously through me?”

“I suppose you could say that, yeah!”

The detective smiles in gratitude and opens the sushi tray. Although he is considered a social pariah, Kiibo’s social standing was worse due to him being a robot. Besides having a different perspective and experiences as a robot, he also has trouble reading the atmosphere of the situation, and is unbelievably intelligent. All of which was off-putting for others, but Shuichi didn’t mind. This, combined with Kiibo’s similarly late entrance to the exchange program, resulted in the two students becoming best friends. 

“I’ll take the sushi, but you’ll need to drink the slushie. If you can, that is.”

Kiibo grins, the light up display on his neck showing green exclamation points. “I’m glad you said that, actually! The professor has given me a function which allows me to detect taste, temperature, and texture in my mouth. I can even ingest things!”

Shuichi’s smile grows. “Oh, that’s great Kiibo!”

Suddenly, the robot turns bashful. “But, uh… only when they’re liquids. And the storage needs to be emptied every day… so I can’t use it that much…”

“Well, it won’t hurt to try it out,” the detective nudges the slushie towards his best friend, “will it?”

Kiibo nervously takes the slushy and puts his mouth around the straw. He stays like that for a few seconds before pulling away. “How… do you make a straw work?”

Shuichi blinks, remembering that Kiibo never used a straw before. “Oh, you have to suck the liquid through the straw. Like a vacuum cleaner.”

The robot hums, and thoughtfully puts his mouth around the straw again. The sight of his deep concentration was comical, but Shuichi kept his mouth shut, in fear of ruining its beauty. Slowly, the blue slush crawled up the straw. It got halfway there before Kiibo stopped and started yelling, “Shuichi! I’m doing it!”

“Well don’t stop, it’ll go back down again!”

“Oh!! Right!!”

The detective continued to eat his food, as his robot counterpart happily drank something for the first time. The former quickly took a picture of the event, deciding to label it “Kiibo’s First Slushie”. He saves it to his camera roll and posts it on his Snapchat story.

“Shuichi,” Kiibo mumbled, “you didn’t look very well when I came into the lunchroom today. Is there something wrong?”

The young detective sighs, and glances at Kiibo’s face. The robot was staring at him, worried and waiting for Shuichi’s response. Kiibo was too good for him.

“Well, first of all,” he says, pulling out his backpack and gesturing to its front, “BOYF? What does that mean?”

Kiibo’s face goes pink, and the lock of hair on the top of his head starts to lose its rigid nature. “Ah… per-perhaps this will explain it.” With that, the robot shows Shuichi his own backpack, also written on in permanent marker. The marker reads “RIENDS”. Shuichi lifted his backpack up to the left of Kiibo’s, and upon realizing what it read, turned red.

“...I hate this school.” In his haste to change the topic and dissipate the awkward atmosphere, Shuichi mentions, “Um... I also wrote a love letter to Kaede today telling her how I feel.”

Kiibo brightens up a little. “That sounds like progress!”

“I… tore it up and flushed it.” The robot immediately “aww”s, disappointed. “It’s still progress, I guess.”

“W… well, I’m not very knowledgeable on human romance. But, if it makes you feel better, I saw on the Discovery channel that humanity has stopped evolving!” Upon Shuichi’s confused look, Kiibo continues. 

“Since evolution is survival of the fittest, and humans don’t need to be strong to survive anymore due to technology, there has never been a better time in human history to be an outcast!” Shuichi spots a familiar head of blonde hair in front of an equally familiar poster. “So, don’t feel too bad about yourself! Rather than pushing yourself, you can always just come over to my house and--”

“Sign up for the school musical!”

“I was going to say play video games and solve cases in my basement but--”

“No, look who’s signing up over there!” Shuichi turns Kiibo’s head towards Kaede Akamatsu, writing her name on the signup sheet in a glittery pink pen.

Kiibo smiles, seemingly amused by his best friend’s infatuation. “Ahhh. I see.”

“Kiibo,” said best friend whispers, “stay here. I’m gonna sign up.”

Ignoring the robots’ questioning, Shuichi slowly walks towards the sign up sheet, taking a pen out of his pocket. Who cares if he was too busy, or if people laughed at him more? Being part of the school musical was an opportunity to talk to Kaede. If she was signing up, then why shouldn’t he do the same? He’ll have a chance to talk to her properly… and maybe they’ll even become friends. He writes his name under hers, his messy handwriting standing out compared to Kaede’s neat penmanship.

“Haha! Gay!” Kaito shouts, and the lunchroom laughs along with him. That rush of confidence was immediately replaced with a wave of anxiety and shame. He pulls his hat down over his eyes once more, face burning as students were dismissed. Kiibo walks up to his side and tugs his sleeve, looking at Shuichi with deep worry on his face.

“Shuichi? Are you alright?”

“...I guess.” It was stupid of him to get embarrassed by this, embarrassed by some jackass who thought being gay was an insult, embarrassed by the entire school looking at him and laughing at him—

Kiibo grabs his hand and starts leading him away. “Come on, Shuichi. We have the next 2 classes together.”

Shuichi nods, and follows his best friend to their next class. This was fine. He was surviving… and that’s what mattered. After all, that was what he was trying to do.

“ _Is that alright?_ ” Shuichi wonders to himself as Kiibo squeezed his hand.

**Author's Note:**

> follow/yell at me @ssentenial on tumblr


End file.
